13 December

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IBM Inventor Chieko Asakawa Named Inventor of the Year at IPO Education Foundation 2019 Awards Dinner

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Last night at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery, the old home of the original Patent and Trademark Office, the Intellectual Property Owners Education Foundation (IPOEF) held its annual Awards Dinner. The IPOEF Awards Dinner is one of the great industry events; an unapologetic celebration of innovation. Each year, this Awards Dinner recognizes the Inventor of the Year, as well as recognizing an IP Champion, Executive of the Year and youth winners of the IP Video Contest. Manny Schecter, Chief Patent Counsel for IBM and president of the IPOEF, began the awards program segment of the evening by...

13 December

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Other Barks & Bites for Friday, December 13: U.S. and China Move Towards Trade Deal, Register Temple Leaves Copyright Office, and Tillis Sends Letters on Copyright Issues

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This week in Other Barks & Bites: Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) gets active on copyright matters, signing a trio of letters related to piracy and Copyright Office matters; Karyn Temple leaves her post as Register of Copyrights at the Copyright Office; the Supreme Court decides Peters v. NantKwest, finding that the USPTO can’t recover legal personnel fees in district court proceedings; Facebook shares drop due to a potential Federal Trade Commission injunction against messaging services integration; the Federal Circuit denies a rehearing petition on Capital One’s antitrust claims against Intellectual Ventures; House Democrats allow the USCMA free trade agreement to move towards...

12 December

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Final USMCA Text is a Missed Opportunity for Innovation

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Earlier this week, Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) reached an agreement with President Donald Trump on passage of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), which if passed into law would replace the defunct and much maligned North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). In what has become surreal political theater, the House released draft Articles of Impeachment while agreeing to deliver President Trump one of his primary campaign promises. As we near the close of the decade, politics in the nation’s Capitol have become bizarre indeed. Acting on False Assumptions Not everyone is happy about the latest version of the USMCA agreed...

12 December

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Rare Diseases as A Strategic Springboard: Leveraging Orphan Drug Designations and Patent Protection for Increased Investment

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Drug innovators are providing much needed focus on rare diseases and, at the same time, leveraging early-stage rare disease results to facilitate down-stream market entry in broad-spectrum diseases. This paper provides a data-based demonstration of how early- and mid-stage pharmaceutical companies are using the Orphan Drug Program—in combination with pursuing patent portfolio protection—to secure investment and de-risk their platforms, thus lowering the financial barrier for expanding their product pipeline. The Orphan Drug Program—which is available for drugs that treat diseases affecting fewer than 200,000 patients annually in the United States—provides a number of incentives that can lower the barrier for successfully...

12 December

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Finally, the Supreme Court Agrees to Review the Federal Circuit’s Dangerous Decisions in Oracle v. Google

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Good news! The U.S. Supreme Court has finally agreed to review the Federal Circuit’s dangerous decisions in the long-running case of Oracle v. Google. The Supreme Court now has an opportunity to reverse the damage done by the Federal Circuit. The Court can explain why copyrighting Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) is a bad idea and why—even if there is copyright protection—fair use applies. ...

12 December

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Recent USPTO Update Provides Blueprint for PTAB Patent Challenge Process

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Since the passing of the America Invents Act (AIA) and the implementation of the inter partes review (IPR) process, IPR has become a popular and important avenue for companies and individuals to challenge the validity of a patent in an administrative proceeding through the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). In the past five years, patent owners and challengers alike have presented new and sometimes novel challenges to the way the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), comprised of a panel of administrative law judges that review and decide cases, conduct trial proceedings, causing the PTAB to reevaluate and tweak the process...

13 November

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AI in Patent Law: Enabler or Hindrance?

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Filing a patent is the clerical equivalent of pulling teeth — at least in the U.S. It first requires inventors to determine the type of intellectual property (IP) protection they require (i.e., utility, design, or plant). Then they’re on the hook to conduct a United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) database search for similar inventions. If and only if the novelty of their idea passes muster are they allowed to proceed to the next step, which is preparing an application and fees. ...

02 November

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Ecuador May Soon Reap the Benefits of the Patent Prosecution Highway

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Ecuador has been participating in a pilot program of the Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) since 2016 but has as of yet failed to implement the system for a number of reasons. However, with the announcement in July that Ecuador may join the Pacific Alliance next year under its new President, Lenin Moreno, and a general market-friendly shift in government, it is expected that the PPH could soon become effective. PPH Benefits The PPH is a system that enables an applicant who receives a positive ruling on patent claims from one PPH participating office to request accelerated prosecution of corresponding claims in another participating office....

01 November

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Know the Risks Before Licensing Unregistered Trademarks in China

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Despite the tough talk in Washington D.C., the ability to expand your business internationally to countries such as China is exciting. But what are the steps? How do you do it and what are the issues? Some of the most common starting points include contracting an advertisement agency to run a $2 million marketing campaign on WeChat, opening an online store at JD or TMALL, and/or finding a retailer/distributor to sell your products in exchange for a percentage of each sale. But here’s the main question: What if your trademark is not registered in China? Questions to Consider Here are some examples: Elizabeth...

01 November

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Other Barks & Bites for Friday, November 1: CAFC Arthrex Decision Makes PTAB Judges Inferior Officers, USPTO Seeks Comments on IP Protections for AI Inventions and Reports to Congress on SUCCESS Act

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Bites (noun): more meaty news to sink your teeth into. Barks (noun): peripheral noise worth your attention. This week in Other Barks & Bites: the Federal Circuit hands out three precedential decisions; the USPTO sends its SUCCESS Act Report to Congress; the Copyright Royalty Board proposes royalty rates on ephemeral recordings for certain Internet transmissions; China unveils legislation to create a public blacklist for patent offenders; the Ninth Circuit revives a copyright case against Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off”; Google agrees to buy Fitbit for $2.1 billion; and the USPTO seeks public comments on the type of IP protections that should be extended to...